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The Civic Center is bounded by Market Street on the south, Franklin Street on the west, Turk Street on the north, and Leavenworth and Seventh streets on the east. The Civic Center is bounded by the Tenderloin neighborhood on the north and east and by the Hayes Valley neighborhood on the west; Market Street separates it from the South of Market or "SoMa" neighborhood.

The Civic Center was built in the early 20th century after an earlier city hall was destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire. Although the noted architect and urban planner Daniel Burnham had provided the city with plans for a neo-classical Civic Center shortly before the 1906 earthquake, his plans were never carried out. A temporary city hall was put up on Market Street, but planning for a more permanent structure and civic center did not take place for several years. The current civic center was planned by a group of local architects, chaired by John Galen Howard.[7]

The current City Hall and the Exposition Auditorium were completed in 1915, in time for the Panama-Pacific Exposition. The War Memorial Opera House and its neighboring twin, the War Memorial Veterans Building (which together were the nucleus of the San Francisco War Memorial and Performing Arts Center), the Main Library, and the State and Old Federal buildings would be built later, during the 1920s and 1930s.

During World War II, Army barracks and Victory gardens were constructed in the main plaza in front of City Hall and the Library. The 1950s through the 1970s and 1980s saw tall post-modernist Federal and State buildings constructed in the area; an underground exhibition facility, Brooks Hall, was built beneath the Civic Center Plaza in 1958. The Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall and Harold L. Zellerbach Rehearsal Hall were added in 1980. The 1990s saw the construction of a new Main Library with the conversion of the old Main Library building into the Asian Art Museum, and the removal of all public benches. In 1998, the city officially renamed part of the plaza the Joseph L. Alioto Performing Arts Piazza after the former mayor.

Its central location, vast open space, and the collection of government buildings have made and continue to make Civic Center the scene of massive political rallies. It has been the scene of massive anti-war protests and rallies since the Korean War. It was also the scene of major moments of the Gay Rights Movement. Activist Harvey Milk held rallies and gave speeches there. After his assassination on November 27, 1978, a massive candlelight vigil was held there. Later, it was the scene of the White Night Riots in response to the lenient sentencing of Dan White, Milk's assassin. Recently, Civic Center was the center point of the Gay Marriage activism, as Mayor Gavin Newsom married couples there.

The centerpiece of the Civic Center is the City Hall, which heads the complex and takes up two city blocks on Polk Street. The section of the street in front of the building was renamed for Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett, a local African American activist. Across the street on McAllister Street is the headquarters of the Supreme Court of California. Across from that building is the Asian Art Museum, opened in 2004 in the former building of the San Francisco Library which is now in a newer building constructed in 1995.

Because the Civic Center is located near the skid row Tenderloin neighborhood, it has a seedy, run-down, high-crime reputation and appearance with large amounts of homeless encampments, which have prevented it from attracting the large amounts of tourists seen in other areas of the city. Despite repeated redevelopment of Civic Center over the years aimed primarily at discouraging the homeless from camping there, large numbers of homeless continue to camp and loiter in the area.